Recent Tasting Notes

I just finished my sample of this (thanks, silentrequiem!). It was good, but the flavor was subtler than regular green jasmine tea, which I prefer. (This was the first lichee tea I’ve had. I’m a big fan of green tea in general, and I prefer it’s thicker and earthier flavor.)

I was expecting this tea to taste more like lychee, given how strong the lychee teas I have are. This tea tastes like a jasmine tea with a very subtle undertone of lychee. It’s very nice, but I’m not sure I’ll buy this again. It didn’t wow me, and the jasmine has a perfumy taste I’m not too keen on.

Preparation

Finally sitting down with a mug of this after a number of failed attempts to start a new sweater (counting, why you so hard tonight???), and I’m waiting for a number of new Steam games to download. So, of course, I reach for the kettle and browsed through the cupboard for something that wasn’t too heavy or caffeinated for 9:45 on a Sunday night.

This tea is lovely. It’s light and fruity and I think would taste awesome iced. Definitely taste mango and papaya mingled together. There’s a slight perfumy quality of the tea I don’t quite like, but it’s faint enough I can overlook it. I think this would be better as a summer or spring tea, rather than a mid-winter tea. But I’m enjoying it.

This is another tea from ching ching CHA, the tea house in Georgetown. I’ve been very impressed with all the teas I’ve tried from them and may have to stop by again to pick up some more. The quality of this white fruit tea is quite high and the price, as I recall, relatively quite low (I believe it was about $7 for the 2 oz. bag?).

Preparation

I went to ching ching Cha tonight with a coworker and her husband. We bopped around Georgetown for a bit. I was in Georgetown TWICE in one week. Unheard of! After dropping a lot of money at the Spice & Tea Exchange, my worker and I went to ching ching CHA, where she dropped money on tea, and then we met her hubby at Baked & Wired where coworker tried to get me hooked on coffee (failed) and I ordered an amazing cupcake that tasted like pancakes. NOM.

And then we all headed back to ching ching CHA for dinner. I ordered White Peony to go with my food and it was delightful. I really like white peony – it’s a solid white tea that infuses multiple times extremely well, mellows me out, and is relatively inexpensive as far as white tea goes.

Ching ching CHA’s white peony was pretty decent, and had a deep, rich flavor. Went great with my marbled egg. I lost track of how many infusions I got out of it but it was many.

Preparation

I did not go into Georgetown specifically to go into ching ching CHA. I went into Georgetown (which is a royal PITA to get to from anywhere else in DC) to go to the Spice & Tea Exchange to buy fancy schmancy cooking spices for a friend’s birthday present. Only, the Exchange was closed early. And ching ching CHA was right there…

So end result is I spent my friend Tim’s birthday present money on tea and a $25 infuser (which I did not realize was $25 until after I had walked out of the store and was mostly out of Georgetown and actually pulled out the damn receipt).
I may be a bad, bad friend.

But anyway, on to the tea, which is made of fabulous. Cinnamon, definitely. Rose, yup. But other than that, it is all tea. This is absolutely lovely, and smooth, and delicious which just a bit of zing from the cinnamon. Fantastic tea, and it was a fantastic price, too, at $5 for 2 oz.

(As an aside, I had a very cracked out dream last night about the Spice & Tea Exchange, where I finally walked in and it was a cafe and in the back room they were selling animal monstrosities, like two headed-pigs. And there was a dungeon in the basement and sinister people trying to kill me. I don’t even know…)

Preparation

Nothing special to speak of hot – though it does fill the room with a very pleasant strawberry aroma – but ice this and mix it with some strawberry simple syrup and you’ve got a fantastic summer treat. I keep this one on hand constantly.
-Cash

Preparation

I’m normally very pleased with Ching Ching Cha’s teas and have learned to acclimate my demanding American tongue to the generally mild flavors they offer, but this tea is weak in scent, weak in flavor, and doesn’t even have the classy attractive look of most genmaicha due to the leaves being far too small and way too much “tea dirt” in the bottom of the bag. Pass.
-Cash

Preparation

Went with a group to Ching Ching Cha today… tried a number of their teas. Nice place – standard tables with chairs and low tables with floor pillows to sit on. Good selection of attractive but pricey cast iron teapots. They’re good about refilling the hot water.

So the Orchid Oolong was pretty good. Kind of a stargazer lilly spice fragrance and taste, though a much milder version. Green and fairly light, but buttery. Table mates liked it, including one who only likes sweetened teas.